Commercial Drive

Commercial Drive Area Info

Commercial Drive is one of the Vancouver Eastside’s main shopping/restaurant strips and consists of 21 blocks (starting at Venables Street to the north and ending at 13th Avenue to the south), which is over a mile long. Still commonly known as being the “Little Italy” of Vancouver, historically the area was where Italian immigrants built their community when they first arrived in Vancouver;  there still are a large number of Italian restaurants, cafes and specialty stores on what locals might call “The Drive”.

Today the area is more mixed, with artists, students, writers and other Bohemian-types occupying the area, and is commonly known as Vancouver’s Greenwich Village. Unlike the more generic shopping strips such as Robson in Downtown or West 4th in Vancouver West, most businesses on the Drive (there are an upwards of 400+ businesses) are single-owner operated and most of them only have a single location. Businesses in the area include European-style cafes, bars, several restaurants that offer different cuisines from sushi to Italian to Mexican, ethnic specialty stores and entertainment venues.

The area around Commercial Drive consists of quiet, tree-lined streets filled with circa 1900′s Victorian and Edwardian homes on narrow, long lots that back up to side streets where the garages to the homes are usually located (in the inner-city neighborhoods, it’s not often that you find garages that are actually attached to the homes). These homes were originally built to house the workers at the Canadian Pacific Railway. Along with the heritage homes are the heritage commercial buildings on and around the Drive; there are so many, in fact, that the inventory of the buildings in this area comprise the second largest in the city. There has been some movement toward the rejuvenating of the buildings while retaining their original character.

The combination of cafes, stores and restaurants that make the Drive an always entertaining spot to spend the day or grab lunch, and the bars and restaurants that make it a comfortable hangout spot for the evenings make Commercial Drive one of the most organic, well known and popular shopping strips in Vancouver. The neighborhood receives an award by the Georgia Straight Reader’s Choice Award for being the best neighborhood in the city repeatedly…not only that but it has also been ranked as one of the 10 hippest neighborhoods in North America by Utne Reader.

Commercial Drive is also the host of the annual Halloween “Parade of Lost Souls”. Families and friends gather at the Drive with costumes and candy. The event is always held on the Saturday closest to Halloween. Gay-friendly Vancouver also hosts the “Dyke March & Parade” in August, on the Saturday before the “Pride Parade” to support- and celebrate- gay pride.